Cape Town - In a remarkable tale of survival and discovery, a peculiar black mamba has captured the interest of conservationists after its rescue last year in Queensburgh, Durban.
It all began when the speckled mamba entered a garden that had a few dogs.
To protect his dogs, the homeowner tried to kill the mamba with a slasher.
However, he only managed to inflict minor injuries on the snake.
Durban snake rescuer Nick Evans was surprised when he got to the property and looked in the small tree the mamba had gone into.
He saw a mottled, as opposed to matt grey black mamba.
A male around 2.2m long.
Evans said the snake was visibly underweight, weak and full of parasites, and had a few other things wrong with him.
“A once-in-a-lifetime sighting! It was an exciting day, to say the least,” Evans said.
“The appearance is due to a genetic mutation.”
At the time of the rescue, Evans strongly believed it had been suggested it could be a really bad skin condition.
“I was surprised that he had survived to adulthood. If I had seen this specimen as a hatchling, I’d never have guessed it would make it to adulthood,” Evans said.
Evans’s friend looked after the snake for a while before it went to Dangerous Creatures at uShaka Sea World.
Now, "Snowflake", as dubbed by Evans’ friend and the name stuck, is in the best of care, in excellent condition, at Dangerous Creatures.
He is on display for the public to see and learn about.
The South African Association for Marine Biological Research (Saambr) senior herpetologist Carl Schloms said Evans brought Snowflake to Dangerous Creatures Reptile House six months ago. However, Snowflake has been on exhibit in Dangerous Creatures for a month.
“This was the very first time that any of the herpetologists at Dangerous Creatures had seen a black mamba with such a striking skin variation,” Schloms said.
However, Schloms has seen other snakes with skin variations such as albinism in pythons, night adders, house snakes, and heralds.
“As Snowflake has shed three times since he arrived, the possibility that his skin variation was caused by a disease was ruled out,” Schloms said.
He said Snowflake has an unusually docile temperament for a black mamba but in all other respects shows behaviour consistent with a black mamba and is in overall good health.
“While Snowflake is in our care, we are hoping to learn a little more about him with further diagnostics,” Schloms concluded.